Fatalis

"This isn't about ghosts and space aliens and you know it," she said. "Why didn't you dismiss the idea of these tigers?"

Gearhart excused himself and started toward the car. Ha

"Why won't you talk to us?" Ha

"Ms. Hughes, this is why I hate these little discussions. Because everything turns into a goddamn interview, a negotiation for information."

"But we can help!" she said.

"How?" Gearhart asked.

"Like we just did," she said. "Gathering information, talking to people-"

"Your kind of help can also cause panic," Gearhart said. "Or it can inform a perpetrator about what we're doing so he can plan his next crime."

"Animals can't read!" she said.

Before the sheriff could say anything else there was a call on the patrol car radio. Gearhart jogged over.

"Look," Ha

Gearhart reached the car, opened the door, and removed the handset from the console under the dashboard. "Gearhart here. Go," he said as he slipped into the vehicle and shut the door.

Ha

The Wall had finished taking his pictures and ambled over. "Did he offer to put us in for a responsible-citizenship medal, being here before the critical evidence was obliterated?"

Ha

"Then the answer is no," the Wall said. "If nothing else you've got to admire Gearhart's consistency."

A moment later Gearhart turned on his flashing lights and drove off.

Ha

"Come on," she said. "Something's up."

Grand and Ha

"Let the Wall go first," Ha

Grand obliged. After the Jeep rattled over the train tracks and sped after the patrol car, Grand set out. Meanwhile, Ha

As they followed the Wall back onto the 101 and then up into the foothills. Grand realized that he had gotten this all wrong.

It was Ha

Chapter Thirty-Four

As he raced to the Upper Santa Ynez River Canyon, Sheriff Gearhart thought about the call he'd just received. Screams and gunshots had been heard by a ranger near the Juncal campsite. It had happened less than a half hour before- probably a camper who had had too much to drink at di

The highway patrol had checked out the Hobie Cat serial number and found that it was owned by a Patrick Vlaskovitz, a student at UCSB. He and two friends were seen going out in the late afternoon, so they were probably killed when they came ashore early in the evening and the beach was deserted. Poor guys at the wrong place, wrong time. But if other attacks were a model, the killer needed more time between kills than an hour or two. And the killer tended to tackle isolated persons, not groups. A campsite just didn't fit.

His flashing lights lit the surrounding slopes as he headed into the hills. The siren was muted by the closed windows and the whir of the air conditioner driving icy air through the vent. He needed the cold air to stay alert. He wasn't a young Marine anymore. Being on the go for two days straight with only a few hours sleep was rough. And it wasn't just the work itself that was exhausting. It was dealing with people like Ha

She had no idea, Gearhart thought angrily. She had no mortal foggy notion what it was like.

Ha

Gearhart didn't particularly like either of them, but that wasn't the issue. As a Marine, he'd learned to look past personality and talent. What would help them realize a goal, complete a mission, and get out alive? Ha

Yet as sprawling as Ha

They fit.

The fur specimens the lab boys found in the fish truck supported the notion that someone was trying to emulate a saber-tooth, though Grand was correct about that. They hadn't radiocarbon-dated the sample or tested to see whether it came from a living creature. According to the experts at Page, there weren't any existing examples of saber-toothed tiger hair. The fact that Gomez and his team hadn't found a match meant that the sample in the truck probably came from some obscure animal like a platypus or wombat. As soon as the technicians got a spare minute they'd nail that down for sure.

Gearhart kept people like Ha

Get him and make him extinct.